2017 Beijing Design Week: Design+
Yichen Zhou, installation view of The Great Wall (2015).
MiA Collective Art is pleased to have been invited to be part of Beijing Design Week (BJDW) for the second time, following its participation last year. Beijing Design Week is a national large-scale cultural and international creative design event annually held in Beijing, having "Design+" as its theme in 2017.
In 2016, MiA Collective Art presented the video art exhibition, CONCEPT NOW, from September 23 to October 7, 2016, featuring the works by eight emerging artists, Haley Bueschlen, Alison Chen, Alicia Eggert, Leif Huron, MarieVic, Yi Xin Tong, Qi You, and Yichen Zhou. The exhibition focused on nonlinear narrative documentaries, records of self-behavior, symbolic repetition of pop culture and abstract geometry in motion. In this year's Beijing Design Week, MiA Collective Art presented installations by Gein Beach and Yichen Zhou in two different locations at China Central Place from October 1 to 7, 2017.
Yichen Zhou, installation view of The Great Wall (2015).
Gein Beach, installation view of Landscapes (2017).
Since 2011, Beijing Design Week has developed ten major sections: Design Night, Theme Exhibition, Guest City, Design Expo, Design Trade, Design Awards, Beijing Design Forum, Design Hop and Fashion Beijing. As part of the Theme Exhibition section, Gein Beach's Landscapes (2017) and Yichen Zhou's The Great Wall (2015) were presented in the lively district of Chaoyang where myriads of passersby could interact with the works that centered around the representation of landscapes and structures, resonating with the fast changing and developing landscape of Beijing.
As a photographic and performance-based work, The Great Wall explores Zhou's very own reconstruction of the Great Wall that has now lost its original function and meaning with the changing of time. In solitary quietude, the artist builds her wall in the vast grasslands. Zhou uses the artificially printed, and yet, the real images of one of the old sections of the Great Wall, nearly about to collapse, and brings together the fragments of the wall to the wild grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Having born in Inner Mongolia and raised in Beijing, Zhou explores of her identity as part of the new generation Chinese artists and points to the challenges of living in a world where she finds multiple cultures and values in conflict.
Having her background in architecture and photography, Beach focuses on breaking the space limitation of two-dimensional image and on the relationship between space and image. The main medium of Landscapes is neon, a typical artificial and commercial product. Landscapes ironically represents the natural landscapes, standing against the bright neon lights of one of the most bustling commercial districts in Beijing. The artists turns the landscapes into an abstract form, creating the perception of bareness and senselessness.
Gein Beach, installation view of Landscapes (2017).
Gein Beach, installation view of Landscapes (2017).
Beijing is named an “international design capital,” recognizing the city’s effort to foster innovation and be a leading smart city in China. As part of Beijing Design Week that raises public awareness of creative art and design industry, MiA Collective Art continues to actively share the creative voice of our times and the idea that art should be accessible to everyone.